Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Project

This weeks Project post will be the first of three - rather than rushing my idea I wanted to give myself a little more time - and of course not to mention the piles of orders I have to get done!

I have been thinking a lot about Courtney Love lately - largely because of Bronny's awesome post about her here. No matter how 'trendy' the 90s are now, or how many Tumblr kids repost Meadham Kirchoff, Courtney will always be one of my biggest inspirations. Also in my mind a lot right now is figuring out exactly what Hopeless is, who the Hopeless girl is, and what makes her unique. It's pretty hard to separate that from me, so there has been all sorts of soul searching going on. The common factor I keep coming back to is the contrast between all the things I love. Hard and soft, scary and romantic, leather and tulle, horror movies and musicals, I could go on. Courtney encapsulates this idea pretty perfectly, so I wanted her to be the starting point.

Looking at the store at the moment, there are a few gaps that need filling. (No garter belts right now! Gahhh!) I want to include some pieces with a little more detail, things that are more unique and not shapes you can find elsewhere. I worked on some samples today and yesterday but given my time-frame they need a little more work, I need to explore my inspiration further. So from Courtney I started thinking about the films that typify my hard/soft aesthetic. Initially I thought of Suspiria - but Dario Argento is only a recent discovery for me so it wasn't quite the right fit. So even though I have shared my love for Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 many times before - and it was in fact what 'The Hunted' was inspired by, all the scenes with headless Linda are just too perfect for my current stream of consciousness not to share again.

So that is where I will leave things today, and I am very much looking forward to sharing what I come up with over the next few weeks. I have this idea in my head that I want to create pieces that are really identifiable as Hopeless pieces - so that is what is sticking in my mind as I am sketching and sampling this new set.

I would love to hear what your constant sources of inspiration are - the ones that inspired you as a child or teenager, and have not lost any of their magic as you have grown older.

5 comments:

I think it's amazing what you do with your inspiration. The juxtapostition of all the things you love really could not make a better product. I myself love the dark side of the romantic. 70's punk meets edwardian ballerina, gothic imagery meets 30's traveling circus. I think that's why I'm so drawn to your blog, it captures that perfect balance.

I adore how you draw inspiration from films and music. I have been a Courtney fan since I was a teenager, remember making a babydoll dress out of muslin material and it falling apart when I went to a festival but still wearing it as I knew Courtney would of hah x